Category Archives: Everyday

You left this morning looking like you were about to rocket into space, your school bag full of shoe boxes. You only needed to bring in one, but if one shoe box is good, then three, surely, is better. This is the philosophy by which you live. You draw a sky with twenty suns. You cover the page in penguins when asked to draw one.

‘So many penguins!’, your teacher writes.

‘So many suns!’

You draw everyone with curly hair. Little curly queens and servants, curly farmers, astronauts with curls escaping from their helmets . You draw everyone with curly hair, apart from your sister. You draw her by your side, more often than not.

You talk with your eyes and your eyebrows. You talk with your finger wagging and your hand on your hip. You skip and hum when you are happy, which is to say, when you are filled with purpose.

Your favourite number is always your age. You were cross all Autumn because I had bought you age 6-7 tights when you were Still Only Five! You raged at their bad fit, their lumpy toes. Until you turned Six. They were never mentioned again.

“Just six spoonfuls of the disgusting red stuff Mummy”, you instruct. Bolognes is not your favourite, but you will eat your age.

Your favourite meals are all Japanese – Oyako Donbori, Teriyaki, Curry. You keep a watchful eye on the soy sauce running out.

You upcycle everything you can get your hands on. Sometimes we know what you are up to – the relentless sound of the sellotape dispenser. Sometimes googly eyes mysteriously appear on things… pom-poms, washi tape, string. Your natural habitat is the collage. We try to sneak things out to the recycling bin before you nab them for your art trolley.

I heard someone on a podcast talking about how many books were on their ‘To Be Read’ list, how they had piles of books in every room of their house, even their bathroom. “It’s the best problem to have”, they said.

I do not know what to do with all your sculptures and projects, this creativity that takes over the house. I do not feel equal to the internal motor that is always driving you, with all of the ways you are clever as clever, with so many suns.

… from the tuck shop at the one and only summer scheme we went to, in the Arts Centre. It isn’t there any more, but if we pass that road I’ll say something: about how it used to be an Arts Centre, about how I went to a summer scheme there, about the monster munch crisps.

It was an ordinary thing, the same old summer scheme in the same old house, that was an Arts Centre. But what it becomes is this treasured memory. This thing we always did. Remember the tuck shop? Oh yeah! Monster munch crisps.

We didn’t show much appreciation, I imagine. We just went. Years later we think, I loved that.

*

What I remember, of course, is how frizzy my hair would go in the sea air. How it would double in size, impossible to detangle. It was always the same. In Portballintrae, at the Giant’s Causeway, on the Strand, on the cliff walk past the convent, in the sand dunes, on the rocks, in the nooks and crannies. The sea air and mizzle and big hair. Walking, exploring, a landscape full of settings for Famous Five adventures.

*

What I remember, of course, is the smell of cut grass. Practising handstands and cartwheels. Hay fever. Practising anyway.

I remember the rope-swing. The tree climbing. The wasteland.

I remember the summer there were ladybirds, everywhere.

I remember the sound of the ice-cream van and the treat of being given money for a screwball.

I remember playing with our neighbours, and our cousins.

*

Kim John Payne says that childhood is an unfolding experience, not an enrichment opportunity.

I bear this in mind as I think about the summer, as I block off a week or 2 on the calendar, pay for a summer scheme, book a few activities. The rest is blank space, margin. The rest has room to unfold.

There isn’t a calendar space for cut grass or frizzy hair or monster munch crisps. There’s just space. I wonder what smells and snacks and places they’ll remember? What they’ll love, in hindsight? What will unfold now, that makes them nostalgic later?

I’m tempted to fill in July & August in coloured pen, I’m tempted by that word ‘enrichment’, I’m tempted by the opportunities that pop up on Facebook on a daily basis. And so I’m grounding myself, in June, by rereading Simplicity Parenting, by listening to the voice of Kim John Payne – that ‘too much, too fast, too soon’ creates stress for our children.

*

We talk like where we live is a rubbish place in the summer, unless we get the weather. But that’s not how I remember it. We live in a land of settings for Famous Five adventures, where ordinary things can unfold in the mizzle and the wasteland and the queue for the tuck shop. They don’t advertise these things in glossy brochures, but they are what we remember, of course.

I realised this at the weekend. I had been listening to some people talking about the Instant Pot on a podcast and I knew as I heard about it’s efficiency and it’s multiple uses that I would not be buying one.

I would have, once, not that long ago. I would have signed up, immediately, for what works for other people.

But I have learnt this thing about myself – my soul is reset making tuna casserole – and new products and methods don’t take account of that.

On a Monday morning, or after a holiday or any busy change of routine, my soul is reset in the kitchen making the food of my childhood, with the same recipes and types of utensils that my mother used.

I am not sure how much I am enriched by multi-use. I am not sure how much I am enriched by ‘smart’. I am not sure if the answer to a fast-paced life is something quick.

So Instant Pot, you may be the ‘Smart Multi-Use, Programmable Pressure Cooker
designed by Canadians with the objective of being Convenient, Dependable & Safe’… but I am the slow, one-thing-at-a-time, mother of 2, raised as a Mullan on Japanese food in Ireland, with deeply engrained tastes and habits and I’m just not ready for you yet.

I have a new recipe to try this week, one that is new, but familiar, if you know what I mean?

I listen to this pitch on the Instant Pot, and I think to myself, I’d love a new saucepan.

It’s a particular kind of cold – morning hailstones on a blustery beach on the north coast of Ireland – and it occurs to you that you have watched too much Marple, read far too much Maisie Dobbs and Inspector Gamache, to be truly at ease in a beautiful and isolated place.

You could write the setting for your murder, here between the crashing waves and the rushing river, an 18th century temple dramatically perched on the cliff edge above…

Maybe someone would see something glancing out the window of the coastal train before it disappeared into the tunnel.

You are relieved to see a dog-walker. You trust dog-walkers. They have a legitimate reason to walk. (And you never hear of dogs being accomplices to murder. Do you?).

*

There’s a lone seagull ‘winter paddling’ in the water’s edge, just like you are. He’s braver than you, not scampering off when the tide comes in, or maybe he’s just more free? You feel a bit silly letting the water wash over your colourful wellies. The seagull looks just right though, he has a legitimate place in the sea, written into his name.

*

What the hailstones add to the texture of the beach is incredible. Someone should write about it, you think. A legitimate writer. A poet.

*

“So, friends, every day do something that won’t compute”, Wendell Berry says.

I know, now, not to try to write as soon as I arrive at the writers’ retreat.

I know, now, to put my welly boots on and wrap up warm and head to the water before it gets dark. I do not need to see words gather on a screen or in my yellow writing pad, just yet. I need to see the sea, and the rocks and my own footprints in the sand.

Nourishment can seem like a waste of time to me. The amount of nourishment I require can be a source of frustration, and sometimes embarrassment, to me. Why do I need to eat so often and with such intentionality? Why can I not run on less? Why can I not start my day with a quick cuppa like other people do? Why can I not sleep without a good supper? Why is what is enough for other people not enough for me? I try to start and end and punctuate my day with steady fuel, with good(ish) food, because I know the cost if I don’t. I need to eat well to function well every single day, multiple times a day. I haven’t found a quicker fix.

As I walk along the cold beach after breakfast, I realise how closely my physical needs and my particular metabolism, mirror my soul needs and my particular introversion. The amount of soul-nourishment I require can also be a source of frustration, and sometimes embarrassment, to me. Why do I need space so often and with such intentionality? Why can I not run on less? Why can I not jam-pack my day like other people do? Why can I not sleep without a good novel? Why is what is enough for other people not enough for me?

Nourishment can seem like a waste of time. Open the laptop and get writing already.

*

This is my third year at the writers’ retreat and I know, now, there will be regular trips to the kitchen, and to the shore and to Port William with Jayber Crow. I haven’t found a quicker fix.

These are the days when Liv tries out her recently learnt skill of sarcasm at every opportunity. So this morning, loudly: “What a surprise! Imogen being cross at breakfast!”. (Mouths exaggeratedly across the table at me “Being Sarcastic”).

These are the days of “wintery showers”. Last night’s snow lay crisp and firm this morning and the whole world feels quiet and cold. It’s my favourite kind of morning. We wear our welly boots and inspect the other footprints on the way to school, the paw prints, the tiny (dancing) bird feet.

These are the days when it’s hard to sleep, the days of winter bugs and sniffles that won’t go away, the days when someone in the house is sick. These are the days of reading past your bedtime, tucked up with a hot water bottle and Inspector Gamache. These are the days when Imogen likes to sneak in like a ninja in the early hours and nestle her curly head beside mine.

These are the days of listening to Kate Winslet narrate audio books. The Far Away Tree. Matilda. These are the days Kate has upped the expectations from our children at bedtime – “Do the voices!”. These are the days my daughter notices that my Highway Rat voice is the same as my Pharaoh voice (which is the same as my Mr Wormwood voice, of course).

These are the days of Deep Questions about Life. Liv is talking about apples and death as we wait at the traffic lights for the green man. The Garden. The Serpent. Eve. “Is it true?” she asks me. I pause. “It seems true to me,” I answer slowly, “because we want the wrong thing sometimes, we take what isn’t good for us.” These are the days of questions that cannot be answered at traffic lights.

These are the days of porridge, every morning, to warm the cockles of our heart. (“I have 21 hearts,” Imogen declared this morning. “I actually do. Stop laughing.”) These are the days of comfort food. A big pot of curry for dinner, or a chippy. These are the days when the hardest thing about reading Inspector Gamache is not the suspense of who the killer is, or how worried I am about the Inspector (a lot), but how hungry it makes me. I want to be at Oliver’s Bistro by the fire with a café au lait and a roast beef and horseradish croissant. It is a kind of torture to read these words on a winter night: croquet-monsieur, crisp baguette with paté, coq au vin, mound of frites, crème brûlée, chocolate mousse.

These are the days of snow and sarcasm and sniffles and snuggles and stories. These are the days of hibernation and craving comfort. These are days when it can be hard not to take the apple. These are the days when we need to be nourished instead, to look at bird tracks in the snow and to try out our sarcasm at breakfast.

The daffodils I bought on Friday have wilted, most of them before they even opened. I wonder if the window cleaner can see them and would it be too obvious if I snatched them away from the kitchen window sill? I don’t want to be reflected in the dead flowers, that’s the thing. I don’t want his glimpse into our home to be of brown wilted daffodils.

The daffodils have wilted and I wonder what I did wrong or what I didn’t do? What if they are a reflection of this home, I suddenly think, in panic. What if this is not a thriving environment? What if it’s toxic? Even daffodils die.

They are just daffodils, of course, don’t be silly. I empty out the water and put them in the brown bin, where they should have been already. They are just daffodils, of course, but they looked like a picture of neglect, a vintage vase of failure.

I could say some negative things about our house, I could self-deprecate our home. Such comments can trip off my tongue. Yet I have glanced into our kitchen window, the way the window cleaner might, and I have seen colour and warmth. Imogen’s tricky words stuck on the kitchen cupboards, art work strung across the wall, spotty mugs, a pot of dinner. This picture tells another story.

It’s important to catch these glimpses.

It is hard to catch these glimpses. We have a radar for the wilted flowers, the crumbs, the clutter.

It takes imagination, and gratitude. It often takes the voice of someone else.

When someone compliments my home – I try to see what they see. When someone sits in our living room and makes generous assumptions about our family life – I try to see what they see.

Sometimes it seems like it’s the most important thing we can do – to see the beauty around us, in what we are creating, to toss those daffodils in the compost bin, along with our measuring sticks, to catch ourselves doing things well.

Yet, the truth is, what I am creating is inconsistent. The daffodil situation is real, there are things I fail at. The beauty is real, there are things I do well. The most important thing I can do, perhaps, is make room for it all.

Erin Loechner says that social media has encouraged us to crop out the contradictions in ourselves, and I realise that this is what I am always doing – with the flowers, with the crumbs, with the compliments – I am trying to crop out the contradictions. I am hiding a vase of dead daffodils so that my window cleaner (if he cares) will see a consistent picture if he glances in the kitchen. (I’m pretty sure he doesn’t care).

There is no consistent picture, of course. There is an ongoing story, and no glimpse or glance or snapshot can capture it. There are contradictions – in my nature, in my parenting, in the keeping of my home – and if I stop trying to crop them out, I am freer to catch myself doing things well.

My friends are coming for dinner on Friday and I’m going to buy daffodils for the kitchen and there will be room for us all.